we shuffle forward one by one, a slow procession
towards sustenance.
There is a man in front of me, relaxed
wearing pool sliders. I wait for him
to finish and when he is gone
I realise that he has taken the last piece of toast
the last piece of toast
and before you say it
well he could just be getting breakfast for his partner
he’s not, because he takes a fucking bite out of it
so you can shove that particular hypothesis up your arse
I stand there, barefoot
in my hospital gown, flapping open at the back
Tena Lady nappy poking out the gap
while a ravenous crowd swells behind me
and as I take up a knife from the cutlery rack
I know there’s not a jury in the land
who’d convict me.
Katie Oliver has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, the Bath Flash Award and most recently the Short Fiction/University of Essex Wild Writing Prize. She has further work published in various places including Reflex Fiction, Molotov Cocktail, X-R-A-Y and Dust Poetry, and is a first reader for Forge Literary Magazine and Tiny Molecules. She can be found on Twitter @katie_rose_o